I currently live in Spokane, Washington, and in the winter months we have very high winds. This is a problem here because every Tuesday after the city truck comes by to collect the garbage, the cans are left empty and essentially weightless. The winds end up blowing the cans all over the street, into neighbors' lawns, and in front of passing vehicles. I almost ran over 3 of them on my way home from work today.

My solution is to have interlocking handles on the trashcans, so when you put them out, you snap the handles together and they anchor each other in place. Now, for this to work, there must be a reciprocal effort on the part of the trash collectors because they would have to lock them back together after the cans are emptied. Either that, or modify the collection trucks to pick up bundles of interlocked trashcans and set them back down together (bundles of up to 4 interlocked cans).

If you have more trash than the maximum limit, keep it in your garage and take it to the dump yourself (which a lot of people do already).

EDIT: Also, for those who prefer to roll their cans, this allows you to link them together and roll them all at once in a train-like fashion.
-- 21 Quest, Nov 15 2006

how about you just add balast to the trashcans.

Or you could have a trashcan bases installed into the side of the road. The bases would limit the trashcans to be only vertically removable (thus uneffected by wind).
-- xaviergisz, Nov 15 2006


I thought about ballast, actually. Problem is, when the cans are full, the extra weight would make them almost impossible to carry to the curb. Rolling is too easy for me :-)
-- 21 Quest, Nov 15 2006


Use a better trash can.
-- Chefboyrbored, Nov 15 2006



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